Western Diet Damages Gut Microbiota

Perhaps the most important result of a processed food diet is the damage done to your “gut.” The natural fiber in a whole food diet is food for the good bacteria. Some 80% of your immune system resides in your intestinal walls and that system is kept healthy by the action of the good bacteria. And an overgrowth of bad bacteria has serious health implications for your whole body including your brain. It’s All About the Food.

Western diets damage gut microbiota over generations, in ways hard to reverse.

It may take more than a tub of yogurt to reverse the effects that a high-fat, low-fiber diet have wrought in the bellies of men and women in the industrialized world, says new research.

Indeed, the depletion of gut microbes that comes with diets deficient in fiber extend well beyond the lives of those whose dietary choices made it happen, a new study finds. Over generations of exposure to diets low in fiber, the research shows that a microbiotic population die-off threatens to drive some of the trillions of microorganisms that live in healthy human guts to the brink of extinction.

Pat Smith is the author of “It’s All About the Food,” a book that guides nutritious food choices as the way to avoid illness and maintain a healthy weight. Pat is a resident of Montgomery County, AR, president of Ouachita Village, Inc. board of directors (Montgomery County Food Pantry), and president of the Mount Ida Area Chamber of Commerce board of directors. Her email address is patsmith2@live.com; phone number is 870-490-1836; visit her website at allaboutthefood.org